How We Got “Super” Displays on Samsung Mobile Phones Using Super AMOLED

Mobile phones have come a long way since their introduction almost 30 years ago, evolving from a simple portable telephone into a small but sophisticated mobile computer – the “smart” phone.

As well as becoming smaller and thinner, handset displays have seen enormous enhancements both in size and quality. In the early days, the displays were limited to just one or two line screens that could show very limited information such as numbers and simple text. But today, virtually every function of the phone is performed with a touch of the screen – from dialing to text messaging and even playing games.

As a result, delivering innovative display technologies to make the viewing experience richer and more enjoyable has become more important than ever. Samsung's display solutions affiliate, Samsung Mobile Display, is spearheading the effort to develop next-generation displays, known as the AMOLED series.

The first version of our AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) screens went into mass production in 2007. The AMOLED displays embodied many innovative advancements from the conventional LCD panels: a higher contrast ratio, more vivid and natural colors and a wider viewing angle. Moreover, because AMOLED screens don’t need a back-light unit as in LCDs, they are more energy-efficient, as well as being thinner and lighter. And we didn’t stop there!

While the original AMOLED touch screens were thin, they needed to have a touch sensor panel (TSP) layered on top of it, which resulted in an extra layer of glass. We saw room for improvement and began to work on the so-called Super AMOLED (On-Cell Touch AMOLED) display, which would eliminate the additional touch screen overlay and integrate the touch sensor onto the AMOLED panel itself.

Integrating the layer that detects touch with the AMOLED screen was not easy at all and the first prototype in mid-2009 failed to meet our standards on image quality and touch responsiveness. Our colleagues at Samsung Mobile Display had to review the display chip design from scratch and also develop new manufacturing equipment suited for the new AMOLED screens.

“We ended up spending almost a year just to develop the new display, but mass production wasn’t easy either. It took us more than 30,000 trials, tests, analyses and research to make this successful,” said Ryan Choi, principal engineer at Samsung Mobile Display in charge of the AMOLED product development.

It took many months of intense research and development before we successfully came up with an AMOLED display with an integrated touch sensor. The new version accurately responded to the touches and had an even better image quality than existing AMOLED screens. Reflecting these additional improvements, we named the new screens Super AMOLED (the new OCTA displays) screens.

The new design approach enabled the Super AMOLED screens to deliver very high performance and exceptional display quality with a highly accurate touch input in a module that is less than 2mm thick!

Here are some more products that have used AMOLED/Super AMOLED screens as the main display.

And of course, we never rest on our laurels. We continue to make further improvements on AMOLED screens fueled by our very intense research and development efforts. The latest screen – Super AMOLED Plus – will be incorporated into Samsung's much talked-about new flagship model, the Galaxy S II, which will be launched shortly:

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About Samsung

Samsung is a global corporate encompassing diverse businesses ranging from electronics, construction, finance and more. Founded in 1938, Samsung has worked to make a better world through our products and services. With 2014 net sales of 303 trillion Korean won, Samsung is also spearheading efforts to bring innovations in clean energy, healthcare and biotechnology. Please visit www.samsung.com for more.